


Oh, Son of A(lternates)

by StrivingArtist



Series: SofA [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate versions, Dragon Fight, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fix It, Multi, Quest, so its like pre-fanfiction of my own works?, wrote these before the final ones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:54:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26976946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrivingArtist/pseuds/StrivingArtist
Summary: Alternate versions of the dragon fight, and the post-fight Freli scene that were fully written and then discarded.
Relationships: Fili (Tolkien)/Freya, Fíli (Tolkien)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: SofA [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1968724
Comments: 8
Kudos: 43





	1. Dragon Fight

**Author's Note:**

> These were fully written, but never went through final edit, and these may not fully align with the events in the story. I'm not re-editing or doing extra clean up, but I know y'all will want it. 
> 
> This chapter is the earlier version of the dragon fight. No promises it makes sense. but enjoy yourselves.

There was a moment as Frey snuck back toward the secret passage with an obscenely heavy bundle of black arrows wrapped up in her coat, when she got the sense that all this might just work out well in the end. For a minute there, she actually felt confident in her chances of getting the weapons to the dwarves, running a few to Tauriel and Legolas at the front of the mountain, and actually killing Smaug. 

Then she came around the corner. And saw the dragon wrapped over a platform. 

Which had a hobbit hiding underneath it. 

The majority of the problem there was that she could see the hobbit at all. He was supposed to have kept his ring on when he could. He was supposed to have snatched the Arkenston, which Thorin had described to him at length, and he was supposed to already be heading back to the dwarves. 

She had expected to have taken much longer to traverse the city than it would take Bilbo to complete his task. 

As always. Frey had been wrong. 

Bilbo caught her eye where she stood in the shadows, and gestured pleadingly at the mountain of gold ahead of him. She took a moment to glance and would have started cursing, except Smaug was far too close for that to be an option. There was the Arkenstone. Right behind the dragon’s foot, and while it was barely more than a few steps from where Bilbo was hiding, it may as well have been back in her kitchen for all that he would be able to grab the thing. Especially since as he continued to gesture, it was obvious that he was injured. Something about his leg. More detail than that was beyond their ability to convey.

The conversation they shared was made entirely of angry expressions and a few broad gestures. Well. His were broad. Hers were limited by all the arrows, which weren’t getting any lighter. She was pretty sure they had just decided that he would stay where he was and she would come back with help. 

Right or not, it was what she was going to proceed with. 

When Smaug next circled the platform, putting his back to her, and his tail far too close for comfort, she snuck to the entrance as fast as she could. Bilbo’s voice barely carried, but she was sure he was helping her to get away by distracting the worm. 

Once in the tunnel she started to jog as fast as she could. The dwarves were supposed to be halfway up the tunnel. Whether from impatience, concern, or just terror at the same roar she had heard, they were barely a quarter of the way from the end. She crashed into Thorin, and would have landed on her ass without his hand grabbing her by the shoulder. 

“Black arrows.” she whispered, shoving them into Kíli's arms. “Kíli, give to them? to Tauriel?” The prince nodded. 

The ground shook and a dull roar rolled over them. 

Frey flung herself to stop Thorin’s attempt to charge. 

“Bilbo.” He said concisely.

“No. No No. I mean yes. But No. Thorin. Plan. Black arrows. All of you in Gallery of Kings. I go.”

“Bilbo is the runner.”

“Bilbo is injury on the leg.”

Thorin’s face didn’t move, not even a twitch, but Frey could see the panic in his eyes. 

He looked over her shoulder down the corridor, then back to her face, and for a moment, she could see why Bilbo was so fond of him. Thorin looked impossibly small just then, and his request from the the front porch echoed. 

Keep Bilbo safe. 

“You will go after Bilbo.”

“Yes.”

“You can lead Smaug?”

“Yes.” She was fairly sure she knew what he meant. “I will be Bilbo for plans.”

Thorin nodded, and she pulled back a step, dropping everything that wasn’t clothing or a weapon on the ground. 

“Use his ring.” 

No. She wouldn’t. 

That was a terrible idea. 

There wasn’t a chance she was ever putting that ring on again. Not unless all their lives depended on it, and even then, it would probably be a kamikaze move, since the odds of her coming up for air again were rather low. But Thorin didn’t know all of that. 

Fíli did, and she could feel his glare even though she wasn’t looking away from Thorin’s face.

“Gallery?” She replied instead.

“Yes, we will be in the Gallery of the Kings. We will be ready. Bring him to us.”

Frey nodded, doing everything she could not think about what she was going to do as her new part of the plan, and cinched the tie of the belt a little closer. As if it would help. 

“Frey.” Fíli’s voice sounded like something she never wanted to hear again. A warning and a threat and a plea, and far too honest for her to touch right now. And as it was likely she never would never see him again, she couldn’t handle that blend of fear and hope and frantic need. 

She didn’t even look at him. 

It would be so much easier with help. Without the ring to keep her hidden, this wasn’t likely to end in anything except barbecue. Frey wasn’t going to risk the Durins on this though. Or any of the company. 

So Frey turned and fled knowing that there was a lot of upset aimed at her back.

She just ran.

One day, if she ever got back to the real world, she wanted to write a letter to the company that had made her boots and tell them that they were possibly the best made footwear in the universe. She’d hauled ass across Middle Earth in them and they were still going strong. Since composing a letter to a corporation was infinitely less horrifying than what was waiting for her in the treasury, she jogged into the enormous room with adjectives like ‘extraordinarily tough’ and ‘impossible to destroy’ on her mind. 

That was better than what, and who, she would be thinking about otherwise. Either of them.

Then there was Smaug, who was also extraordinarily tough and impossible to destroy, and he was hissing threats at Bilbo. 

“And cowardly assss he issss Oakenshield sent you in here tosteal from meee? I know what you sssseek.” 

Smaug’s speech was sibilant and horrible. It sent chills down her back, and the only thing she wanted to do was turn and run the other direction. Probably until she found the sea. Then she would start swimming. 

But Bilbo was still trapped. 

Maybe her dreams had been right, and the visions she’d seen as she carried the ring had been right. Maybe if she could get to Bilbo, could get the ring, she could actually control it and help for once. She could actually do something right, and save the dwarves and save Laketown, and just once, it wouldn’t be her half a step ahead of disaster, making things worse with every effort she took. 

Her fingers twitched and she almost ran forward, sprinting to reach Bilbo in time to take the ring again and try to master it faster than dragon fire could turn her to ash. 

Except Frey knew she had cocked up enough things in this world already. She wasn’t going to let this go wrong too. She had told the dwarves everything she could think of that they had to know. Thorin was aware of the risk of going off his rocker. She’d told them all that there was another army coming. Dwalin knew to keep an eye on the boys. Bilbo would talk to Gandalf about the ring.

She had also dumped enough knowledge of the one ring into Galadriel that it should help Frodo in case all of this went to pot. She had a truly ridiculous sketched comic in her her pack outside that was addressed to Elrond that should also help as an absolute last resort.

Frey swallowed the fear. 

Shoving down the thought that Fíli was going to be pissed as hell if she survived this, Frey ran toward the turn in the pathway ahead, rushing up the stairs. 

“Smaug! Eat me!” 

She pitched a rock as hard as she could, and saw it overshoot as he moved. 

The dragon turned, and she heard a strangled shout from Bilbo, but she was already running. 

Since she had snuck across Erebor once today, she at least had a vague sense of what was ahead of her. And she was sprinting full tilt towards the columned hallway with rooms mazing on either side. If there was any mercy she could hide, and if there was any luck she could double back without him noticing.

Heat flared behind her as she flung herself into the first door. 

This was absolutely the worst idea she had ever had. 

And she’d had some doozies since she got here. 

********

Fíli stopped on the precipice, staring at the vanishing tail of a dragon as it whipped around a corner. There was more gold piled in the room than he could comprehend. There was wealth beyond imagining, and it would be the saving grace of his people after so many years of deprivation and suffering. 

But Fíli wasn’t looking at it. 

His brother, escorted by Balin, was currently sprinting across Erebor, trying to reach the Gallery of the Kings, trying to reach Tauriel and arm her. Trying to ready weapons and slay a dragon. The company was running behind them, keeping to shadows and coves, keeping safe and sneaking across the mountain kingdom. 

Bilbo was slowed by a gash on his leg, but had run to them when they appeared in the mouth of the passage. 

The terrible fear clinging to Thorin had eased when Bilbo smiled at him. 

Fíli had waited while a cloth was bound onto Bilbo’s leg. 

He had waited while the black arrows were distributed, and the plan they had built began to accelerate toward its conclusion.

Thorin, Bilbo and he were the last group, ready to run now, to flee from the beast, and take safety beaching pillars and posts in the gallery. They would wait there. 

Wait. 

Smaug would come to them. 

Fíli swallowed, still staring at that same enormous hallway as bursts of light flared and faded. Each time there was a new one his chest constricted. 

The only thing he could think of was the part of the plan no one had wanted to talk about. Smaug would find them eventually. If the runner died, Smaug would still find them. 

Another burst of flame brightened the glow of gold around them. 

When the runner died. 

“You gave her the ring Bilbo?” Thorin asked, voice curt. 

“What? No. She wouldn’t take it.”

Of course Frey wouldn’t take the ring. Fíli had known that. She thought it affected her. She thought it would endanger the others.

Without it, there wasn’t any chance. Even with it the odds were not in her favor.

Thorin and Bilbo were ready to move behind him. 

Fíli turned to them, gripping the arrow so tightly he felt every burr and flaw. He had a responsibility to his brother, to his uncle, to his people. They had to succeed. Bringing down Smaug meant everything. It was their chance for life and security. It was everything. 

She had made her choice.

He couldn’t help her. 

Smaug’s bursts of fire had ceased. 

She was going to die getting them to their victory. She had promised she would get them through. She had proven it more than enough times. She had risked her life for them.

He had pushed her away, and not reached them in time. 

Smaug would find her. 

Frey was going die for Erebor, and had known it when she offered to take Bilbo’s place.

And all Fíli could do was—

Thorin shook him by the arm, his face pinched and concerned. When Fíli met his eye, his uncle’s expression softened. It was still writ with fear, but there was a rising understanding accompanying it.

Fíli glanced to Bilbo, just a flash, before looking at his uncle in a wordless plea.

Thorin inclined his head, and took the arrow from Fíli’s hand.

Bilbo and Thorin ran, and Fíli turned back to the last place he had seen the dragon’s fire.

Frey was going to be pissed at him for this. But as long as she lived to punch him again, he planned to smile through it all. 

*****

Stupid or not, her half formed plan had achieved its goal. Smaug was chasing her not Bilbo. He was no longer in the treasury. The dwarves would be able to travel. Frey would have been happier, but this was just the worst. There was barely enough time to throw herself behind a pile of stone as flames burst through the door behind her. They faded, leaving her with a sick feeling from the smell of scorched hair. Ancient tapestries, hanging in tatters on the walls lit, and acrid smoke rolled over the room.

“Okay Mahal, Yavanna, Galadriel, PJ, whoever’s in charge around here, you better be watching out for me or I’m gonna be an appetizer in a minute.” she hissed as she got up, vaguely noticing the new rip through what was left of her jeans. Frey stumbled over broken stones as she ran into the next room, forced to follow Smaug’s likely path. 

Air rushed by, she hid behind a column, and waited for a blast that didn’t come. She ducked her head around a doorway and caught a glimpse of Smaug’s face within the next room. The wall had long ago collapsed, and he had his snout shoved inside to smell for her. 

Frey ripped away from the door, running the other way, and throwing herself into the hallway as she heard him move. Getting away wasn’t going to happen. So she ran across the hallway, trying to reach another chamber before Smaug noticed. Heat chased her from the wall of flame in the hall and she knew she was wrong. 

He had definitely noticed.

“Wheeerrrree have you gone littleflea?”

Frey kept running, hoping for a door or a passage in this maze that exited anywhere but the hallway. 

There weren’t any. 

She threw a rock as hard as she could through an archway, and when the crack of it against the wall on the opposite side of the hall turned Smaug’s attention, she took her chance. 

She ran under his weaving tail, and into the hallway she had just exited. 

The Valar must have been paying attention for once. Smaug was still turned the other way, snout pressed against the doorway she had pitched the rock into. 

She took a few slow steps, edging backwards, keeping a close eye on his tail over her head. 

Frey felt the rock beneath her foot, and froze like she’d stepped on a landmine. She had a bare second to drown in horror when she realized it had caught in the tread of her boot. 

Then it collapsed with a crunch.

It was a tiny sound. Nothing he should have heard, nothing that should have revealed her presence slinking away from him. 

Smaug’s head whipped back to look at her. She saw him snarl a smile, but was already running. 

Her feet took her back toward the treasury. 

Maybe she was headed toward the secret passage. Maybe she was just retracing her steps. Maybe it was just blind terror taking the first paths she saw.

It didn’t matter why she ran there, she did, and did it without thinking. Around the corner and over the long bridge, with the vibration of Smaug’s giddy steps following her. 

If she was lucky she might get to have a chat before she got roasted.

Frey didn’t have luck. 

Smaug was already grumpy from his chat with Bilbo. 

She was screwed. 

At the sound of a hiss ahead of her, she suppressed a yelp. Before she saw him, she knew it was Fíli, being all heroic and helpful. Being entirely too stupid for her not to want to punch him and kiss him and then punch him some more. 

This was the thing they weren’t supposed to do. There was only the one goal that mattered. Live Durins.

Fíli needed to stop endangering that. 

She ran toward him anyway. 

“ _ Wellhowinteresting _ .  _ Comeheretohelpthis  _ one did you, dwarf?” Fíli had an arm out to her and his usual exasperation creased his brow, looking at her and not the dragon speaking over her shoulder. “Then you  _ canburntogether _ .”

The flow of air as she tried to outrun death set off fresh panic in her mind. All the same, it was Fíli’s face falling from obstinacy to terror that told her what was coming. Frey crashed into him, and yes, he caught her. He also took her momentum and used it to throw them both off the bridge, just ahead of the burst of flames. 

The fall was short, not enough time to scream. Not enough time for her to react. 

Fíli had reacted the moment she had collided with him, cradling her against his chest, and keeping her covered, keeping her head pressed to his shoulder, stationary and protected for the impact.

Frey yelped into his neck as they hit the coins. He’d rolled them so he didn’t land on top of her, but they still both slammed their sides into the gold. Every wisp of air in her lungs vanished in a gasp, and her vision swam under the pain. Rolling over her, Fíli caught her hand in his and wrenched her to her feet. Any other time, she would have fought the way he dragged, but with the coins still hot from Smaug’s fire, and the dragon {screeching} behind them, she followed eagerly, still gasping and dazed. It was falling and sliding more than it was running as their feet sank into the hill of coins they rushed down. 

She tripped near the bottom, and he wrenched her arm trying and failing to arrest her fall. Frey outpaced his run with her somersaulting descent. Fíli was skidding to the ground as she climbed off her knees. 

They both snapped a look from each other to looming, eager form of Smaug approaching them. Fíli caught her hand again and squeezed. He nodded once. She copied it, and they pulled apart, sprinting in opposite directions shouting insults. 

******

Another roar echoed, and the movement of air around them sent ice down his spine. Thorin forced himself to think of anything but his heir. Bilbo had kept pace as they rushed to catch the others. His face had paled and his breathing was heavy, but he had not faltered as they ducked from corner to corner. 

They were in the gallery. All around him the company was rushing back and forth, shifting rubble to form hiding places. Kíli had several arrows at his side, and the oversized bow in hand. He and Dwalin had practiced. They could use it almost like a windlance. Kíli wouldn’t miss. 

The dragon would fall this day.

Kíli looked brittle as he stared into the darkness down the hallways. They were guarding all of them, but roars had echoed from the largest several times. Kíli had noticed his brother’s absence. There had been no time for Thorin to explain, only to gesture that he was aware, and that Fíli would arrive shortly.

It could easily be a lie, and Thorin’s eyes flickered shut while he clung to his own bow. His heir might be lost, and Thorin would be at fault for allowing it. 

“They’ll be fine Thorin.”

“You cannot know that.”

“But I can believe it.” His hobbit echoed what Thorin had said in the cells of the elven king.

Bilbo’s hand settled over Thorin’s chest, anchoring him. 

“You would have been hidden, protected by the ring.”

“No.”

“He is — what do you mean?”

“Smaug could still follow me. He knew I was there. That’s how he found me.”

The trickle of ice on his back became a rush. He had lost too many to the dragon. He could have lost Bilbo. He could have lost him. Now he was going to lose his heir. Even as the comfort of Bilbo’s safety rose, guilt crashed over him with the knowledge that he may have traded his heir for his love. 

“Thorin, stop that.” Bilbo gripped his tunic and shook, voice hard, “It will not help. It will not save him. They both made their own choices.”

A hum rumbled beneath their feet, closer than the last ones. 

Thorin smashed down everything but the instinct that had been etched into his bones, and pulled away from Bilbo. Tomorrow he would grieve those that were lost. For now, there couldn’t be anything but the plan, and the vengeance he had wanted for a hundred and seventy years. 

********

Fíli registered the aggravation in Smaug’s short snarl, but could not stop. 

Catching his hand on the corner of a ruined column, he threw himself around the turn, into the side hall. 

There was a still a weight dragging against him, all of it fear. He wanted the wyrm to chase him. He wanted to get to safety. He wanted to give Frey a chance to get away. He wanted to find a forgotten corner and cower away from the beast that had been a figure in his nightmares all his life. 

Smaug was worse than his imagination had ever conjured. 

At the end of the hall, the path stretched in two directions, and Fíli turned left, trying to think of the map Balin and Thorin had sketched. 

It was silent and still around him, darker than it had been, and he slowed his steps, trying to listen for any clue. None came, and he took a few more steps, knives in hand like child’s toy. It could never protect him, but it kept him from feeling defenseless. 

Frey screamed. 

He only caught an echo of it, but he knew the voice, and was chasing the source while the sound still rang in his ears. The last time was Bolg. The last time had been just as hopeless, just as furiously broken.

But Erebor carried echoes well. 

Fíli didn’t find her. 

Smaug appeared, sinuously observing him. His claws were ripping new hunks from the walls, and Fíli saw a wall crumble from fresh damage in the distance as the dragon advanced. Fíli’s path had been too long and straight, there wasn’t a place for him to hide. A glance over the edge of the walkway confirmed the long drop. There was a chance he’d survive the fall itself, but it would delay death, not avoid it. He wouldn’t walk away from that impact.

“Come back to help her dwarf? Did you think you would distract me from my hunt? Your little knives cannot harm me.” Smaug’s taunt was an eerie thing that curled Fíli’s toes in his boots.

Dragons lied. 

Everyone knew that. 

“Did you hear her screaming? Was it your name she sssshhhhhrieked just now?” Smaug’s tongue danced out, and fluttered over teeth and lips. “You came to ssssssave her, did you dwarf? Too late.”

Fíli clenched his jaw shut. Never speak to a dragon. He had been told that in every children’s tale. In every history; never, ever speak to a dragon. 

“Where are the rest little golden dwarf? What happened to the others? To Oakenshield’s mate? We were interrupted.” Smaug clipped out the word and swayed closer. Fíli held his place. If there was no escape behind him, he could at least hope to cause some harm in his last moments. “I’ll find them in time. I’ve not had the taste of dwarf in farrrr toooooo lonnnnng. But no more. I’ll find your pathetic company and when I am done, I will end that pitiful town on the lake.”

Fíli fell back a step. 

“Or maybe I’ll let you stay, and watch as you’re all driven madddd. You should be glad I rid you of your little whore. You do not know what awaits any who stay near her. She’s falling already. She and Oakenshield will fall together and ruin will follow. Perhaps I’ll let you live just to watch you despair.”

“No.” He shook his head violently, even as the memory of the riverbank returned. 

“Noooo? You would rather I end you now?” Smaug slithered closer, “That can be arranged.”

Maybe he would be able to stab the beast in the eye before he died. 

“Oy!  _ HavetotryharderthanthatSherlock _ !”

Smaug startled, and a boot bounced off of his neck.

Fíli lunged. 

The dragon moved too fast, and there was no chance of managing a blow. As Smaug pulled away and hissed furiously at Frey, Fíli stumbled after him, trying to spot her in the vast maze of stairs and bridges. 

He got a glimpse, just a moment of Freya on the top of a staircase, arms extended in challenge. She pointed to him, ardent and commanding. Wordless, he knew what she wanted. Like tearing off a limb, Fíli forced himself to obey, and moved, heading toward the rest of the company, leaving her alone with a dragon. 

***********

Sprinting was all well and good, but this had been going on too long. She wasn’t a marathoner. As soon as Fíli had vanished, Frey had torn off down the span, tracing a path to a narrow hall Smaug couldn’t enter. 

Now she was panting, her chest heaving as she tried to get oxygen into her lungs. She slumped against the wall, muscles trembling. 

Surely by now the others had reached the Gallery of the Kings. Surely they were in place. Hopefully Fíli had found his way there.

She could finish Bilbo’s job now, and get Smaug to them. 

If she’d had any idea where she was. 

Which she didn’t. She dragged herself to the end of the closed hall, and laughed deliriously at the filthy sock on one foot, and the boot on the other. Grandmotherly advice about clean socks and underwear in case you went to the hospital bounced uselessly around her skull. There wasn’t any rule she knew of for imminent immolation. 

And the shoe had gotten Fíli an escape. 

Worth it.

Prising the other off, she left it against the wall. 

She crawled up another staircase, finding a huge long hall, buried in darkness at the top. Several stories higher than she had been, she looked over Erebor, reclaimed bow still in hand, searching for the dragon. 

“Where did you go, Smaug? You’re enormous and loud and make fire and really want to eat me, I doubt you’re hiding.” Frey shouted in english, not really thinking about anything clearly anymore. 

“There you are.” Smaug said softly, head snaking around a far wall, and prowling toward her. “So sorry that I  _ wasdelayedbut  _ you see I  _ wasenjoyingabiteto  _ eat.”

There wasn’t much of that she understood, but the final word unstrung something in her chest.

No. 

Fíli had gotten away, she was sure of that. She’d seen him run before taking flight. Smaug had been pursuing her and Fíli had gotten away.

Except, she hadn’t known where he was, and Smaug could have killed her easily on those long stretches of bridge, on those endless flights of stairs, unless he had been otherwise occupied. 

It must have shown in her face. Smaug grinned and came closer, claws digging into stone and tearing out great hunks of it as if it was a sandcastle. He flicked out his tongue over his teeth, and she raised the bow again. 

The area seemed vaguely familiar. Of course, since all of Erebor was grand, green, gold, and in ruins, everything had a similar feeling to it. Frey knew she needed to keep moving, keep leading him, keep running, but she was shaking, exhausted, so far past her own limits that the only thing keeping her upright was adrenaline.

“What do you  _ expectsuchapunyweaponcando  _ to me?”

“Fuck you Smaug.” Nori would be proud of her. Not for the way her voice had just trembled though. Or the fact that she was grateful for dehydration since it was keeping her from pissing herself. 

“What are you?”

“I... am an idiot.”

“Ohhhhh are you?”

“Yep.” Stupid voice shaking. 

Nothing for it. 

If she was going to die, it wasn’t going to be cowering. She brought the bow back up, knowing that there was no chance of her actually hitting him. She had better odds if she pulled off her other shoe. Frey swallowed the lump in her throat. 

“Wouldn’t it be ridiculous if I was the one to bring you down?” she mused, “I’ve always wanted to be a dragonslayer.” She said it in english, mostly because there was no chance of him understanding it, and there was a difference between making a bold stand before getting eaten and pissing off a live dragon. 

“That would be terribly ambitious of you, little flea.”

The arrow she had nocked flew half cocked, off course and more useless than usual. 

Her arms went lax, and the bow clattered to the stone floor. 

“You, you,” she faltered, trying to remember to breathe, “you speak english.”

“Is that what you call this tongue? It has been many years since I heard it last, and not by that name. You aaaare interesting. What are you doing here with thieves and liars? Almost as interesting as that barrel rider before. The one that smelled like dwarf.”

“Of course he smelled like dwarf, he’s fucking one of them.”

Dragon laughter was a terrible thing. 

Smaug closed the distance the rest of the way, any closer and she’d have been inside his blind spot, pressed against his mouth. Her feet, ever the best advocates of her ongoing survival, began to retreat, no matter how tired she was, pulling her further into the enormous hallway, and away from him. The shattered stones dug at her bare foot, and she winced at each step.

“Well I think technically the dwarf is fucking him, but who knows? Maybe they like to switch? I’m not going to judge.” 

The little corner of her mind that wasn’t wrapped up in terror and confusion was fairly sure that saying all that — saying anything — was stupid and useless and going to get her killed. Most of her was too lost to do more than follow her instincts. Instincts that she had long since realized were prone to babbling when panicked. 

“Ohhhhh that I could tell without you. If Oakenshield thought to taunt me with his mate, he’s more the fool than I had thought. But it matters not. He will fall to the stone as his grandfather did. He will be destroyed by it. Brought low. Driven maaaad.”

Smaug turned his head as she continued her shaky retreat, looking her over for a moment, “Just as you will fall. But not to the stone, not you. You’ll fall to something farrrrr morreee preciousssss.” 

The word echoed in her head as she crashed to the ground under the onslaught of imagery and sensation. 

“Too easy. It hasss already begun hasn’t it little flea. You want it. You have tasted it and now there is nothing you would not do to have it back again. It calls to you and you know that one day soon you will answer it. Don’t worry flea, it wants you to have it. That I could tell as soon as I smelled you, prowling through my gold.”

“No.” She forced herself back onto her feet, which immediately resumed their retreat. 

“Oh but it does.”

“No, I don’t, don’t, don’t want it.”

“It has all the power that you crave. I could help you have it. Let you keep it. You could have everything I can see that you want. After I kill the others…. the rest of them that issss.”

“No. Fuck you. He got away. Who? Who did you? Which of them? No! They’re fine!”

“You carreeee about them? It won’t save them.” 

The hammer on her belt, the one she hadn’t meant to carry with her was in her hand, “Which ones?” She wasn’t sure what she was asking anymore. Which he’d killed, which he wanted her to kill. Confusion was a physical presence now, wrapping about her and destroying any hope of rational thought. 

The laughter blew foul air over her and the force of it sent her back a few more steps. A distance Smaug closed immediately. Frey could feel the walls opening up behind her. Some enormous room, and there Smaug would be able to move faster, quicker, and there was no way she’d get away this time. 

“No.” She said with all the will that she could muster, which was, admittedly, not much. “No. Dragons lie. Everyone knows that. Even I know that.”

His claw swept forward too fast to see, let alone dodge. It caught her as it swung up to grip the edge of the hallway. Frey fell back, her moment of confidence gone, and started scrambling away on her hands and ass, blinking away the wet warmth that was trying to blind her. Until her hand came up to swipe it away, she hadn’t realized she was bleeding. 

“There’s no need to lie when the truth is more than enough to ruin you.” He pulled up, jaw swinging open, and she wasn’t going to get away in time. 

Westron had never sounded more beautiful than the shout she heard behind her. With Smaug raised high to strike, he had exposed his chest, shown his weakness, and time froze between the moment when she heard a bow string twang in the air and when she saw it clatter aside, inches from a shot that would have killed the dragon. Smaug had to know of the gap in his scales. He sunk back low, and Frey rolled to avoid his claw as it slammed into the ground. 

There were more sounds of bows, shouting and taunting, and Thorin’s maddened bellow, but Smaug was well protected now. Then a scream of pain, a roar, a thunderclap torn from a living throat crashed over her, and Smaug’s furied throes flung her across the floor. The pair of arrow shafts embedded in his left eye were no black arrows, and she had just enough time to see Kíli dragged behind a column for safety before Smaug released a burst of anguished flame into the room. 

The tapestry lit ablaze, and black smoke began to hide the ceiling. 

In Westron again, he bellowed, “You thought you  _ coulddefeat  _ me? You  _ thoughttohaverevenge _ ?” Frey could hear Bilbo screaming, but the words didn’t matter compared to getting to anyplace but where she currently was. Away from smoke and claws. 

“You  _ careaboutthem? Goodthenyoucanwatchthemburn _ .” Frey was nearly out, nearly away, when the dragon spun back down to look at her and hiss, “And when I return, I’ll kill the rest of you.”

“No. No! Smaug! No!” 

Smaug turned and moved too fast for any to respond. Crashing through the part of the wall that blocked his path he sent another tremor through the ground. She heard the second crash, even though she couldn’t see it. 

Knocking aside the blood in her eye again, her feet took over, and she chased the dragon. There was no hope of catching him. That would have been impossible, but she could run, and if Laketown was going to burn again. If the men of the lake were going to die again, she could at least see what she had caused. 


	2. Post Fight Bad Idea Bears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the first version of the Fili/Freli ill advised sexy-times post dragon. Except that the first time I wrote it, it was even more of a bad idea. Smaug had burned the town and been killed by Bard.   
> The dynamic is sorta the inverse of what I did in the actual fic.

Fíli watched as Óin washed out the blood and dirt from the cut across Frey’s face, still and solid as the mountain above them. 

It was too much. This day had been too much. The moment he had realized what Thorin was saying, something had shifted in his mind. She was going to challenge a dragon for them, and the full weight of what wasn’t between them nearly crushed him. 

Thorin was going to be furious with him later for disregarding the plan to make for the Gallery of the Kings and let the runner, let Frey bring the dragon to them. It was supposed to be Bilbo. It was supposed to be Bilbo and his ring, and the protection that it afforded. It wasn’t supposed to be Frey, barely armed, unarmored, without so much as a coat to protect her as dragon fire licked at her back while they ran. 

He couldn’t shift them to shield her, in that moment as they crashed into the little corner. He had meant to hide her in the corner and protect her. It wasn’t enough protection. He had felt the heat of it through the layers he wore and knew before she screamed that her own clothing offered little defense against the blaze. She had spun them too fast for him to counter it. He was better suited to withstand the blast of heat, but by the time he had felt the stone behind him there was nothing to do but try and shield her with his arms. 

Then she had pulled, and taunted the dragon, and run.

Fíli could not stop seeing her, scrambling away as her face stained red with blood, dodging a dragon’s claws when he could do nothing to help. 

And she had run after the worm, challenging, trying to turn his attention back so Kíli could take a second shot. She had challenged a furious, injured fire-drake. 

To help them.

Then she had chased him out of Erebor, staring in horror as Smaug descended on lake town as if she was at fault for failing to stop him. 

Smaug fell, she had faced down Thorin, and then tried to shrug off any aid from Óin. 

Fíli was going to have to kill her. 

It was too much to withstand in a single day. 

Coupled with the last words they had spoken to each other. Coupled with every trace of horror they had overcome in the forest. Coupled with months of infuriated battling. 

It was too much. 

As soon as Óin had smeared a salve over the new stitches and declared it as good as it could be for the time, Fíli locked his hand back onto her wrist and hauled her from the room. 

He had no goal, Erebor was as much a mystery to him as everything else they had seen on the journey. But he walked until the sound of the company’s celebration had grown dim and then walked more. 

The first room he saw that had a functional door, he dragged her inside. He shut the door with a backwards kick and spun to face her. 

Óin had missed some of the blood in her hair. 

She was tense and terrified and fuming. 

His hands moved to grab her shoulders and he shook her, wishing that he could just shake the stupidity out of her. Wouldn’t work. Right at that moment, he wasn’t sure there was anything except stupid inside her. 

“What were you thinking? Were you trying to get yourself killed?”

She was missing a shoe, she was missing most of her clothing, shed in favor of speed for her idiotic run. Nori had thrown his coat over her shoulders as they watched the dragon fall, but it was still too thin.

She smelled like smoke and ruin. Her hands were clenched in fists and her jaw was tight as she stared him in the eye. 

“Frey. You could have died. You nearly did. The plan was for Bilbo to lead Smaug. What were you thinking?”

“Thorin. Bilbo was trap. Bilbo was injury. I help Bilbo. I save Bilbo.”

“That’s not— you could have died! Freya I appreciate everything that you have done for us, for the company. I cannot fathom why you continue to help us, after everything that has occurred, everything that we have done to you. The way we have treated you. The way that you have sacrificed to be able to help us. I know how much you have done. Freya I swear I will never understand you, but you must not do that again. I have asked you time and again not to do that. Stop risking yourself for us!”

“Fíli?”

“You need to stay safe! For once, {khuzdul cursing} can you do as you’re told?”

He shook her again, too aware of how tight he was gripping her shoulders.

“Fíli  _ youretalkingtoofast _ . Slow, please?  _ Icantkeepup _ .  _ Imnotthinkinggreat _ . _ Itsbeenanawfulday. Therewasadragon! Healmostkilledyou. Youweregoingtodie. Whyareyouyellingatmenow? Canyouyellatmetomorrow? _ Fíli? Please? Talk with me tomorrow? Angry with me tomorrow?”

Her hands came up to catch the fur on his coat. She didn’t try to get away, but she looked like her last nerves were shredding. Beneath it was anger and tears.

“I need you to not die. Smaug is dead, but you told us that there is a battle approaching and Freya, you need to not die. Just listen to me. Next time you must listen to me. You have to not— stop putting yourself— stop— you have to stop risking — I had to come after you — if you had, Frey—“

“What Fíli!?” There went that nerve. The last of it shattered and she screamed at him, wrenching on his coat to get his attention. “What? Why you are angry? Smaug is dead! You are safe. Kíli, Thorin, Bilbo. Fourteen are safe! Why you are angry? What?”

Fíli could feel how tight her grip was. He could see how mad she now was at him. Which is when something in Fíli gave way. 

“I lost you!”

As his voice cracked he pulled away and cursed as fast as he could in every language he knew. When he ran out of the most obscene things he had ever heard spoken in khuzdul, westron, and sindarin he ran through everything she’d ever said in a fit. 

This was not how this conversation had gone when he tried to plan it while he walked. Either conversation he had considered having. Neither was supposed to include yelling. Neither included him losing his temper and provoking her to snap back at him. 

He wasn’t supposed to — He wasn’t supposed to lose his temper, and he definitely wasn’t supposed to tell her that. He should have waited until he had calmed himself. She was going to be so mad.

“Fíli? You are good?” Dammit all to the void. 

She sounded concerned. Worried about him. He rounded on her again, breathing in heaving gulps. She was reaching toward him, genuinely concerned, and trying to help. 

He surrendered to impulse. 

One hand caught behind her neck, the other around her waist, and he dragged her to him. 

“Fíli.” His name slipped from her mouth just before he claimed her lips. 

That horrible kiss in the forest. When he should have responded, when he should have taken the precious seconds before the orcs reached them to press her into a tree and made clear that she was not alone in the chaotic battle of want that seemed to tie them together. That kiss. That had, at the time, felt anything but timid as she kissed him. 

Her jaw dropped in a gasp as they ran into the door. Her arms shot up, over his shoulders, buried in his hair as she jumped. 

Like they had done this before, working as well together as they had in a fight, he anticipated it, and caught her leg to help her as she locked her ankles behind his back. Insolent as she often was, difficult and obnoxious and infuriating as she had been, she seemed intent on undoing all that. 

They kissed sloppily, desperately, ebbing and flowing control until she caught his bottom lip between her teeth. As she pulled back, she traced her tongue over it, and he groaned. For a moment they were held there, mouths touching but stilled, panting. 

He should put her down. He should step back from the door and let her down, and at least pretend that they were adults But he shifted his weight, trying to convince himself to do so. He slipped, and he caught her on instinct, rolling his hips tighter into hers. She moaned breathlessly, and all hope of stopping evaporated. 

His hands now roving, he followed the line of her waist to the curves of her chest, and smirked mercilessly when he felt her hips twitch against his. Fíli slid his hand up into her hair and, testing, tightened his grip. It earned him a curse he’d heard many many times, except now it was faint and pleading. He tilted her head to the side and dragged kisses over her exposed neck. Tracing slow circles over a tightening nipple with his thumb, he returned to her mouth. 

There wasn’t any chance between them of communicating with words, and he wasn’t going to waste time trying to do so. Not when this opportunity was before him.

When she twisted in his grip, he noticed that her hands hadn’t been idle. His coat was open and the lacing of the gambeson was loose. But he refused to relinquish his hold. She tugged the collar down, and Fíli moved his hands from her long enough to get the thing off of him and onto the ground. Before he could reclaim control and continue extracting delicious little whimpers from her, she had frozen, hands placed over his chest, eyes locked on the bandages wrapped around him. 

Then she inverted the role, and ducked her head below his jaw, nipping and sucking. 

Unable, or maybe just unwilling to stop her, he set his hands to better tasks, and started picking at the lace of her tunic. Half dressed as she was, it took little time before he found the skin beneath, and for all that he and seen it before, the feel of it, softer than he’d imagined, almost free of scars, and still distantly warm made the hitch of his hips similarly unavoidable. 

She could have been killed, and instead she was wrapped around him, and sweet mahal, rolling her hips to meet his as he moved against his will and better judgement.

The pinch of her boot digging into his back reminded him that despite the temptation to remain where they were, they were going to have to move to proceed. There had been a table in the room he had noticed as he entered, and it took little more than the thought to move them from the door. Her legs were still tight around him, and without the door to prevent his reach, he could drop his hands lower, holding her ass, and pulling her closer. 

He almost wasn’t willing to put her down. 

Almost. 

But releasing her for a moment meant that he could reach the tie of her trousers. Faster than he could undo the little knot, she was shucking his gambeson and undershirt onto the ground. While he watched, she shifted and wriggled, and slipped out of one leg of her trousers, not bothering with the one trapped by a boot. 

She was wearing some kind of tiny skin tight small clothes, and the air fell out of him at the sight. At some point his hands had managed to undo the buckle of her shirt, and it left her bare down the front save the binder. That slipknot holding it tight came undone easily, and he tugged it out of the way. 

He drank in the sight of her, flushed, and smirking more than he had ever seen. Frey was staring at his chest, now that it was visible, and then they both moved at once. 

Her hands attacked his trousers with an insistence he wholeheartedly supported. His dipped between them as he leaned into another kiss. Slipping past the bit of cloth, he slid his fingers between her legs and moaned into her mouth at how wet she was. She bucked against his hand, and there was no chance he could keep himself from sliding fingers inside her while his thumb sought another prize, buried within the folds. Her mouth dropped open against his, and he had just enough time to gloat internally before she got her hand inside his trousers and fisted him sharply. 

It was his turn to moan. 

She traced the outline of his open mouth with her tongue, and a very enticing image came flooding to the front of his mind. 

Fíli heard himself gasp her name. 

And she answered, sounding just as wrecked as he felt.

“Fíli..”

Much as he wanted to prolong the moment, to at least {make incredible} an experience that every sense of propriety said should not be happening, it was just too much. He rocked his hips forward, and they both caught hitched breaths as the head of his cock slid against wet and willing lips. The angle wasn’t ideal, but he was not going to let her away from him. 

Frey fumbled between them despite how closely they were pressed together, and grabbed him by the base, aligning him. 

Her head fell back on a smothered yelp as he slipped into her in a single move. Fíli’s head fell forward, and he bit hard enough to leave a mark he was going to regret on her neck. She was whispering his name over and over, and pulling at him, trying to bring him with her as she slowly melted toward the tabletop. As her shoulders reached it, he felt her legs tuck around his, and yank him deeper. 

The first time he pulled back and thrust, he was conscious of it. Then her lips parted, she gasped out a sound he would be happy to hear forever, and he lost himself to desire. 

Frey rolled her hips up, matching him at each slam forward, still gasping out sounds that may have been his name. Tension was already coiling deep in his stomach when he felt her shift beneath him. 

She rolled them. 

He found himself with his back against the wood, and Frey atop him, straddling his waist and rising up to ride him. Her eyes were shut and she bit at her own lip as Fíli caught her hips in his hands, and continued to {fuck} into her, half controlling her as she rode. There was nothing tender or gentle in it, just two months of constant danger and fear for each other breaking at long last. 

So it could not last long. 

With her above him, open mouthed and clinging to his hands, and the long strip of bare skin beneath her open tunic leading his eyes down her chest to where they were joined, he knew he was close. And hopelessly lost.

“Frey,” He managed to gasp. 

She looked down, dark eyed, panting through swollen red lips, and Fíli moved a hand to find its way beneath the bluish cloth of the underthings he had not taken the time to remove. His fingers glanced past his own cock inside her, then moved up. He barely even touched her. 

Frey shuddered on a cry and came, still staring down at him with a wrecked expression. Fíli managed barely three more thrusts before he fell as well, while her body seized around him in aftershocks of ongoing pleasure. He pulled her down onto his chest once more, and wrapped arms about her, gently kissing her forehead beside the cut there. 

She was asleep moments later, before he could even separate them. 

Increasingly aware of the mess he had no way to clean, and returning to reality with a crash, he managed to sit up without waking her. There was a rug rolled in the corner, and with little effort, he settled her against it. She was too exhausted to do more than shift to a comfortable position, and tighten a hand into the fur of his coat as he laid it over her. 

The rest of his clothing he slipped back on. He needed to find water and soap if possible, so he could wash away the smell of sex, and spare her the consequences of this mistake.

She was, quite rightly, exhausted. She had faced a dragon. She didn’t stir as he dressed and shut the door behind him. For a moment he stood in the hall with his eyes shut and breathed, trying to will himself into control once more. That had not been his best decision. 

The act, or the departure. Both were entirely stupid of him.

But for now, he needed to find a pack, or just a water skin, anything to be able to help rectify the situation. The problem of course was that the packs were with the company, and if he appeared there now, in his current state, it would be too obvious what and who—

Fíli cut that thought off before his mind could start on a path that would send him back through the door. 

“Uncle is looking for you.”

He didn’t bother to open his eyes, not wanting to see the smug taunt in his brother’s face. 

“Fi? Uncle is looking for you.”

“Aye.” Fíli exhaled, “Sent you to find me?”

“I volunteered. I didn’t mind walking back to the treasury to give you a hand with the packs we left there.”

Fíli looked to his brother, and saw the look of knowing disapproval there. Kíli gave him a look that made it clear they’d be talking about this later. 

“Aye. The… packs we left in the passage. We needed to fetch those.” He still wasn’t sure how to proceed, and nodded stiffly. 

“Nadad. Take the pack, find yourself a corner and wash up. Grab the other two packs, go find Uncle. He wants to set up defenses and has decided you’re to be involved. I’ll take this pack.”

“You’re aren’t going to—“ Jealousy or anger or maybe just shared embarrassment flared before Kíli cut him off with a laugh. 

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll just be nearby to hand this off when she wakes.”

“It shouldn’t be you here when she does. It isn’t right.”

“No, but there's not much between the pair of you that I’d call right.”

Kíli clapped him on the shoulder, shoved the bag in his hand and gave him a full push to get him walking. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you haven't come found me on tumblr to hear about my original works, you definitely should.


End file.
